The show follows the titular character and her motorcycle Hermes as they travel a fictional world and its various countries, experiencing their culture, history and ways of living. The show is very episodic, featuring only a single double parter, otherwise always changing the tone each episode.
Kino and Hermes are supposed to act as the observers. Because of this, the show feels more like a collection of short stories rather than an actual adventure of the main characters. Although sometimes Kino ends up taking a very proactive approach to a place she visits, which in my opinion is when the show actually gets less interesting. I didn't really care too much for the action side.
Personally, I love the show when an episode gets full on philosophical and thought-provoking. It's not afraid to give you grim, reality checks. In fact, most of the show probably feels very familiar to the viewer, handling commonly explored dystopian themes, especially those that reflect our real world. However, I still found the philosophy a hit or miss. When it's good it's amazing, but sometimes I felt like it missed the mark and it was like someone's first attempt at writing this kind of material.
I loved the eerie vibe the show has going on, feeling almost like a horror series sometimes. This is paired beautifully (pun intended) by the haunting OST. There are no happy tracks in the music whatsoever, but not overly gloomy either. A perfect fit. The show also has this odd CRT like filter on it which I have mixed feelings on. It's good for the vibe but sometimes a bit jarring to look at.
Even though I still preferred a more passive approach from Kino herself regarding the different countries, I still wish we got to see more of her story too. We get a backstory of how she got started but that's about it. Would have loved to have learned more about her Master and all the time between her childhood and current situation.
The world building feels slightly off, since we don't get to see Kino really move between the countries a lot, everything just ends up feeling very disconnected from each other, which is a shame since it's a fictional world and I think there was a lot of room for some greatness in this aspect.
While the show is short, I wouldn't recommend binging it all in one go. I think it's better to let the message of the episodes sink in for a while and actually take it in. Scoring this was hard since it's far from perfect but there were times I loved the show and overall it's still a quality piece of anime that deserves its status as a classic.
